FROM DR. BRIAN HOOPERM.Div., Psy.D.When You’ve Said “I Do,” And Now You Need to Say, “I Don’t” If you are a gay man who married a woman, you most likely did so because you loved her, believed you were doing the “right thing,” and thought that your attraction to men would just go away or somehow not matter, if you even consciously acknowledged it in the first place.

But, in the paraphrased wisdom of Carl Jung, father of analytical psychotherapy, “What we resist persists.” And eventually the walls of compartmentalization grow thin, deteriorate, and the two selves must meet and figure out how to work together. Not to integrate the two sends the energetic struggle underground and that results is dis-integration (a pulling apart the sense of who we are at our core) that manifests in anxiety, depression, and behavior such as intentional deception, alcohol and substance abuse, indiscriminate and dangerous sexual behavior, self-sabotage, and estrangement from one’s wife often prompted by a combination of withdrawal and blaming her for the husband’s dilemma. So, what to do if this is your situation?

Coming Out To Your Wife And Kids. Telling The Family Can Be Very Difficult.By Andrew M PottsIn the country, there's a greater expectation from family, friends and the community to marry than there is in the city. Many country guys marry and have families before they've had a chance to come to terms with their homosexuality or to explain to the world that they are gay.

Sometimes gay guys marry because they don’t want to disappoint their family.

It's hard enough to tell your parents and siblings that you’re gay; adding a wife and kids to the equation doesn't make things easier.

If your children are still quite young, you probably won’t have to tell them until they’re older.

Telling your wife is going to be extremely difficult for you both. She may feel betrayed, deceived, or that it’s her fault that you’re gay. She may think she's done something wrong to make you look at other people. It’s vitally important that you let her know that it’s nothing she’s done and that it’s not her fault.

Hopefully you chose a wife who loved as a friend, so make sure she knows that. too. Make sure she knows this is as much about her being free to find someone who can truly love her as she deserves, just as much as it is about you.

The questions you need to ask yourself are:

Is an amicable separation possible?

Can you continue living together as friends or will you have to separate and move out completely?

Can you stay friends or will you need some time apart?

If you do separate, is there going to be a problem with visitation rights or custody over the kids?

How will her side of the family take it and what about your mutual friends?

It may be worth getting a couple’s therapist or relationship counselor involved who might be able to mediate on some of these issues. You might even want to do this before you tell her, particularly if there has been conflict in the relationship leading up to this decision.

Finally, the breakdown of any relationship is always going to be painful, so if things get too much for you, don’t hesitate to get some therapeutic counseling for yourself.

Having an impartial person to talk to who doesn’t know you or any of the other people involved can be a big help and a qualified counselor can help you with strategies to cope with any depression or stress you may be going through.

Over the last fifteen years, I have worked with thousands of straight wives who learned at some point during their marriage that their husbands are gay. Through the years, members of the gay community have criticized me for taking a position that I maintain to be moral, ethical, and necessary. These words of conscience need to be heard by those of you who are gay or bisexual men married to heterosexual women.

It is about truth, honesty, and commitment towards the person who should be the primary focus in your life. To put it quite simply - COME OUT TO YOUR WIFE. This plea is not being made out of sheer emotionalism, but rather from common sense, logic, and a sense of fair play.

Marriage is the highest form of commitment a man can make with a woman. It supersedes all prior relationships and goes beyond friendship. The person you marry lives with you on a day-to-day basis and shares your life — the good times and bad, during sickness and health, through your moments of glory and depths of despair. It is a relationship built on trust and honesty towards each other.

That is not to say that every move in a marriage must be explained. Sooner or later we all fall into the trap of making up "little white lies;" however, hiding your homosexuality is not exactly keeping a little secret when it plays such a big role in your life. It is living a lie. You are living a double life in two separate worlds, and the twain will never meet. There is another side of you that is totally hidden from the person who has so much trust in you and relies on you for basic honesty.

There is another issue that must be mentioned. If you identify yourself as gay or bisexual, then chances are you are participating in some kind of sexual activity outside your marriage. Justify it as you may, but this is infidelity. I have often heard the standard excuses from Gay Husbands stating that they don’t consider gay sexual encounters as cheating because it is not sex with another woman. But as the saying goes, a rose by any other name is still a rose, and a sex partner, regardless of the gender, is still an act of infidelity.

I am certainly not making a value judgment about the nature of your sexuality. In fact, no one would be more delighted than I, the former wife of a gay man, if people could learn to come to terms with themselves. If you are gay and have the need to be part of the gay world, I am all for it, but not at the expense of your wife who is sitting at home worrying day in and day out about what is wrong with her.

From the wives of gay men I have spoken to and counseled, there was one common overriding feeling — the torture of not knowing what the problem in the marriage was. While the gay husband may think he is juggling his life around to please everyone, his wife increasingly senses that there is something dramatically wrong with the marriage, and yet she cannot put her finger on the problem. She feels a pull, often alienation, and keeps asking herself where she is going wrong. She finds herself buying every aid available to be "more of a woman," never realizing that the problem is she is not a man.

And what about the Gay Husband? You are suffering too, but in a different way. You often are feeling guilty. Most times when you have moments of intimacy with your wife, which you find diminishing as time passes, your body is with her, but you mind is with someone else. You are functioning and performing, but starting to resent your wife for putting you in a position to feel pushed to do something that is becoming more and more uncomfortable for you.

You have to keep inventing excuses of why you are not in the mood and hoping that she will love you enough to believe them, even when she knows they are lies. You have to live in a state of hiding, hoping that no one you know will bump into you when you’re out being yourself in fear of their revealing this information to your wife. It can't be easy living with this kind of a lie.

I am not insensitive. I know how difficult it is to go to the one person in your life who probably means more to you than anyone else in the world and tell her something this explosive. I know you are taking a big chance and there is a lot at risk here. You are taking a chance of losing your wife, your children, and your security. But let’s be honest. You are losing them anyway. Once your wife feels the pull, she is going to start to drift emotionally and mentally. If she can’t be happy, your children won’t be happy. Somewhere down the line, the family structure will break down, even if no one but you knows the real reason why. And, at that point, it will be your fault because you didn’t have the guts to do the right thing while you had the chance.

No wife likes hearing the kind of news that you are going to tell her, and it is going to be a rough road ahead to bring things back to a natural course, if it can ever be brought back. But there are relationships that are working out once the news is out. A sense of friendship and understanding can develop once honesty is on the table, perhaps not under the same roof, but throughout life. This is the most important factor when you are raising a family.

Coming out is a gamble that can go either way, but almost every major decision in life is a gamble. And when you consider what the stakes are here, hopefully you’ll realize it’s a chance you have to take.

Michelle Smith - Former, Lesbian Now Minister: The Power of Change Outreach

From Lesbianism to Grace: The Power of Change.

This is Michelle's story. It speaks of death and life, nature and choice, rebellion and salvation. From her childhood filled with abandon and abuse, Michelle identified with and desired the love of women. Her needs and desires led her to illegal drugs, imprisonment, and a sexual life littered with ex-girlfriends and an unfulfilled need for love. Despite acknowledging her need for God, Michelle continued to backslide into drug trafficking and lesbianism.

Finally, after being convicted and confronted with the fruit of her sins and wrong thinking, Michelle capitulated-giving all to her Savior. Michelles unwavering, childlike dependence upon her heavenly Father will inspire readers to confidently trust the God of the impossible in every area of life.

Michelle Smith is part of an outreach team that goes into inner cities and deals with underprivileged children, teaching and spreading the good news of Christ. Their mission statement is, Evangelism and restoration to preach the gospel to every available ear. Michelle is an ordained reverend and plans to return to Jamaica to give the people there an opportunity to hear and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ not only hearers, but also doers of the Word.

Video Links: An Interesting Perspective

A Jamaican woman tells her story of how she came out of lesbianism and drug dealing and is now helping others to be transformed from their life of homosexuality and addictions. This is an interesting conversation that can help you if you are struggling with same sex attraction or other addictions, and truly want to have a life changing experience with Christ in the forefront of your life.

No one ever said coming out was easy. Chances are, it will not be easy for you either.

Coming out means potentially losing a lot. It is possible to lose one’s family (both immediate and extended), friends, home, job, etc. Coming out is never done without cost. At the very least, one’s self-image must be reinvented. This reinvention requires that part of one’s self-image must be changed, and part of that process is to grieve one or more losses. Each person grieves in his own way, but the stages of grief apply to most:

Denial: I am not different. This will be easy. Nothing will change except having sex with men rather than women. A relationship is a relationship, just different parts. No one needs to know, this is private.

Anger: This is not fair. This should not be happening to me. It messes up everything. People will not like me anymore. They will only see that I am gay and I can’t handle that. Why me? I did not ask for this. I don’t want it. I won’t do it.

Bargaining: I will only tell a few people. I will only have sex or be gay when I am out of town. I will only get oral sex or be the top, because that means I am not gay. I am not like that.

Depression: I don’t see a way to be happy. I can’t be gay. I can’t come out. I can’t stand this lie anymore. It is killing me. There is no happy ending for me.

Acceptance: It won’t be easy, but I will do what I have to do. I want to be happy; I want to be who I really am. I am worth it and people who love me will love me no matter what.

The loss can include loss of social status, loss of relatives and friends, loss of jobs, loss of church/religion, and loss of money. Each loss has its own process and consequence. Some men pay higher prices to be who they really are and live in integrity. For the vast majority, the journey is worth the price and they become much better, happier people. But it is crucial that the stages of grief be felt and expressed in whatever way is appropriate for each individual.

How do you handle knowing that your own most fundamental assumptions about yourself were wrong? How would you reinvent yourself in your forties if you began to suspect that much of your life had been built on a lie – or at least a critical misperception? Dr. Loren A. Olson,a prominent Midwestern psychiatrist, faced this situation when he finally confronted the fact that despite almost twenty years of marriage to a woman he loved he needed to divorce her, as he realized and accepted that he was gay.

Dr. Olson is author of Finally Out – Letting Go of Living Straight and provides insight and wisdom to others experiencing the same situation.

Whether it be a husband or wife that finds themselves questioning their own sexuality or a family member or children dealing with accepting their new reality. Dr. Olson help us understand the journey not just from someone who has lived it, but also as a professional psychiatrist.

Coming Out Help For Gay Husbands

It is estimated that approximately four million women are married to a gay husband, here in the USA. Plus the additional millions worldwide. Twenty percent of gay men in the USA are married to a straight woman. Twenty percent of all gay men in America are in a heterosexual marriage. Fifty percent of all gay men in America have fathered children. An estimated 6 million to 14 million children have a gay parent.

Research shows that more than 80% of mixed-orientation marriages end in divorce. But divorce is not necessarily inevitable for these marriages. According to Amity Buxton of the Straight Spouse Network, "When the gay, lesbian, or bisexual spouse comes out, a third of the couples break up immediately; another third stay together for one to two years, sorting out what to do and then divorce; the remaining third try to make their marriages work. A half of these couples divorce, while half of them (17% of the total) stay together for three or more years." Straight Spouse Network

We have great compassion for men who are gay and are in mixed orientation relationships or marriages. This situation cannot be easy for you the gay spouse, because we believe almost every man entered his marriage loving his wife and hoping to spend his life with her. Most gay men believed that loving their wives would take away those "urges" to be with men because the pressure in our society not to be gay is so great.